The poll released by , a school choice advocacy group, surveyed 1,000 adults, including about 200 K-12 parents, exploring their views on education tax credits — state programs giving families the ability to offset the cost of private school tuition by refunding portions of their taxes to them.

Nearly 70 percent of adults surveyed “strongly” or “somewhat” supported education tax credits — with even higher support from 80 percent of K-12 parents. 

“Parents see this as an opportunity to have a little bit more authority over their kids’ education…and coming out of the pandemic, obviously, that support has skyrocketed,” said Matthew Frendewey, vice president of strategy at Yes. Every Kid.

But education tax credits are controversial, with supporters, often Republicans, backing the program’s boon for family empowerment; and opponents, often Democrats, arguing the program undermines public education by rerouting state funding to private schools.

Similar programs include education savings accounts that continue to face partisan divides for how parents have used the funds — raising eyebrows on purchases such as kayaks and trampolines, cowboy roping lessons and tickets to entertainment venues like SeaWorld.

Awareness of education tax credits was spurred after Oklahoma passed the since the first program began in 1987 — reserving families private school funding that caps at $150 million in 2024, and increases to $200 million in 2025 and $250 million in 2026.

Other states with education tax credit programs include Alabama, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Ohio and South Carolina.

Lily Landry, a senior legislative analyst at Yes. Every Kid., said education tax credit programs give families the flexibility to choose the best learning option without government oversight.

“There’s not as much checks and balances for families to spend their money,” said Landry. “We’re putting trust in families that know what is best for their child.”

Here are three things to know about education tax credits:

1. While most adults support education tax credits, a majority are unaware if any states offer them.

Despite strong support for education tax credit programs, more than 70 percent of adults are unaware if any states offer them.

Landry said the general lack of awareness of school choice programs lends itself to the uncertainty most adults surveyed had.

“A big problem that we see is that when legislation is written they don’t outline how whoever is administering or leading the program has to communicate with parents and families about their options,” Landry said.

The more aware parents are of education tax credits the more likely they approve of the program, Frendewey said.

“When you’re dominated by the traditional neighborhood public school, a lack of awareness exists around what options are out there,” Frendewey said. “But when you get the awareness, there’s been tremendous support.”

2. Poor adults have the lowest support for education tax credits and the lowest belief that they would improve the overall education system.

Less than 60 percent of poor adults support education tax credits and about 50 percent believe they will improve the education system.

Frendewey pointed to the lack of “exposure” to how education tax credits work as an explanation for the survey findings.

“Most families who are middle to lower income probably don’t feel that structure benefits them,” Frendewey said. “Just the name of it alone probably makes a lot of families feel like that’s not something they’d qualify for.”

“A tax credit requires you to pay out of pocket first and then get refunded, so that’s really difficult for middle and low income families,” Frendewey added.

The largest support comes from not only K-12 parents but also 75 percent of Republicans and 73 percent of upper middle class or higher adults.

Families from higher income households are typically more aware of school choice options, Landry added. 

“The information might not be getting to some of the communities that need it or might be able to utilize it,” Landry said.

3. Parents who support education tax credits also favor education savings accounts, public school open enrollment and part-time public school access.

Among the 80 percent of K-12 parents in support of education tax credits, 72 percent support education savings accounts, 70 percent support public school open enrollment and 72 percent support part-time public school access.

“Even if parents don’t want to exercise choice for themselves, they see a value in creating more options for the overall ecosystem,” Frendewey said, adding this is in part due to how the pandemic empowered families to create unique ways to educate their kids.

“What it exposed to parents was that pluralism is good,” Frendewey said. “The opportunity to have a more diverse education marketplace is an overall benefit to all kids whether or not you’re going to choose your local public school, private school or homeschool co-op.”

Disclosure: Yes. Every Kid. operates as part of the wider Stand Together Trust network. Stand Together Trust provides financial support to ����Ӱ��.

The , released in August by and research firm surveyed 900 Missouri voters about politics, schools and LGBTQ topics in education. Nearly a third of voters (29%) rated Missouri public schools as poor, markedly more than the 17% who did in June 2020.

Gary Ritter, dean of the university’s school of education, said the fact that Missouri voters are losing confidence in their schools isn’t a surprise — it’s also a finding that is reflected  

Ritter said like others across the U.S., Missouri voters saw their faith in education erode through the pandemic, as districts have struggled with remote learning and academic loss.

“We’ve had a peek into what goes on in crisis-mode school, when you’re trying to figure out how to deal with a pandemic,” Ritter told ����Ӱ��. “So folks are slightly less confident in school performance and school quality, just as I think any of us would have guessed. Missouri looks like the country in that way.”

The poll, which began in 2020, is conducted online about every six months with U.S. residents who have registered to participate in YouGov web surveys. It has a plus or minus margin of error of 4 percentage points. Most questions are similar each time and are about issues that are top priorities to Missourians.

The latest poll included more questions about teachers in general, said Ashley Burle, chief of operations and research fellow at Saint Louis University. 

“One thing that I tried to connect is some of the issues related to teachers and more broadly connecting it to the teacher pipeline issues,” Burle said. “We know that there are issues that need to be addressed. There are things that need to be done to help the teacher pipeline get back on track, so I’d love to see us kind of make that more clear connection between a lot of those points in the future polls.”

Just over half (51%) of voters said they have “a great deal” or “a good amount” of trust and confidence in Missouri’s public school teachers. Less than one-third (28%) of voters said they had some trust while the remaining voters either said no or weren’t sure.

About 54% of voters viewed the K-12 teacher shortage as a problem in their community and a strong percentage of respondents (81%) think teacher salaries should increase. 

But only 35% said they would advise a young adult to become a teacher, while 45% said they wouldn’t and 20% weren’t sure.

The poll also conveys a slight openness to charter schools with 55% of respondents saying they believe charter schools should operate in all areas of the state and 52% saying they want them to operate in their own district. 

Ritter said currently most charter schools operate in the Kansas City or St. Louis metropolitan areas because of that controls where the schools, which are publicly funded but independently run, can be located.

Burle said she was surprised about the results regarding more controversial topics in the classroom, such as gender identity and sexual orientation.

More than half (56%) of voters said they approve of the discussion of sexual orientation in high school compared to 18% in elementary school. These results were similar for the discussion of gender identity. Roughly half of voters also opposed the banning of books that feature LGBTQ youth.

Missouri grappled with of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill during this year’s legislative session. The bill would have banned the discussion of gender identity or sexual orientation in schools, but it failed to pass.

“It was interesting to see the gradation in responses. We kind of think this is an all-or- nothing issue — either we teach these things in all the schools or we don’t teach them in any of the schools,” Burle said. “In fact, voters think, ‘Hey, actually, for older kids, in high schools in particular, we actually think it’s OK.’ I think it just shows you there’s a little bit of an area of gray.”

Ritter said he hopes policymakers will use the results to inform themselves about what Missouri voters find important. While Saint Louis University researchers are still analyzing the latest poll results, people can on the university website.

“We’re going to be digging in to say, what question should we double down on in the next poll? What do we want to learn?” Ritter said. “So we’ll be trying to figure out again how we can find interesting trends.”

The poll released by gathered respondents’ views on ESAs, a program giving families access to state education funds to pay for approved services, such as private school tuition, instructional materials and tutoring.

From the 634 parents interviewed, 59.7% support ESAs, with 14.6% opposed and 25.7% undecided.

Similar splits were seen among parents along party lines, with 67.5% of Democrats, 61.3% of Republicans and 55.3% of Independents in favor of ESAs.

But ESAs are certainly controversial, with supporters, often Republicans, backing the program’s boon for family empowerment; and opponents, often Democrats, arguing how the program undermines public education.

“The momentum we are seeing, not just with the public but with parents, educators and those who are in some way touching education in America right now is very much inspiring,” said Erica Jedynak, chief operating officer of

According to the YouGov poll, support for ESAs is decisive among Black parents, with 70.3% in favor of the program. By comparison, 59.1% of white parents and 50.8% of Hispanic parents support ESAs.

The pattern is similar among teachers: From the 313 teachers interviewed, 58.8% support ESAs in contrast to 14.7% that oppose and 26.5% that are undecided.

Among Black teachers, however, 78.9% favor ESAs. By comparison, 56.2% of white teachers and 60.7% of Hispanic teachers favor the program.

ESAs also have broad support from teachers across the political spectrum, with 58.2% of Democrats, 63.8% of Republicans and 54% of Independents in favor.

Sadira Davis, a Black parent in Phoenix, Arizona, said that this comes to no surprise because public schools in Black communities are often considered incapable of providing a quality education.

“My daughter Eden was diagnosed with autism at four…and when I transferred her to a public school kindergarten it was honestly devastating,” Davis told ����Ӱ��.

Davis said the staff at her public school were ill-equipped to manage students with special needs. In one particularly painful memory, Davis recalled her daughter was tied down as she rode the school bus.

“It was a traumatizing experience…they had her harnessed and she had this face that looked like an animal chained to the bus,” Davis said. “At that point I needed something different for my kid.”

Davis’ daughter is now a 6th grade student at AZ Aspire Academy, a special education school, which Davis enrolled her by using funds from Arizona’s ESA program, the .

Black children are often the ones who “fall through the cracks in public school systems,” said Tiffany Dudley, a former charter elementary school teacher in Phoenix, Arizona.

As the student development coach for , Dudley said that ESAs give Black parents the choice to have their child taught by teachers who have “walked a mile in their shoes.”

“Parents can’t necessarily demand their teacher give directions to their child in a different way,  but they do have the choice to take them to another school that will better serve them,” Dudley said.

Janelle Wood, founder and chief executive officer of , is shocked by the overwhelming support among Black teachers for ESAs, as they are often perceived as devoted supporters of public schools.

“I always scratch my head because oftentimes they’re the ones that get overlooked for promotions and retaliated against when they speak up on some of the injustices they see,” Wood told ����Ӱ��.

ESAs offer Black teachers the opportunity to work in settings they may have never been exposed to, such as private schools, microschools and learning pods.

“Many of our educators feel limited in what they can teach and how they can go about administering the different educational models they learned when they went to school,” Wood said. “This gives them that flexibility and freedom, so I’m really pleased to hear their support.”

Disclosure: Yes. Every Kid. operates as part of the wider Stand Together Trust network. Stand Together Trust provides financial support to ����Ӱ��.